Comparative Literature

Tonight for story time, Alex and I read two different versions of the three little pigs story. First, we read Three Little Javalinas, a retelling of the story set in the Arizona desert. It was a wonderful gift from my good friend Robin and her little ones, Jackson and Delaney, who live in Arizona. Then, we read the Disney’s Storybook Collection version, which is told and illustrated with stills from the classic Disney cartoon.

And then we compared. Alex did a good job of coming up with several differences and similarities, including the fact that one of the Javalinas was a girl, that the piggies and javalinas were dressed differently, the javalinas have more hair, the wolf is wearing clothes and the coyote is not. We talked about the structure of the story, about the fact that the tumbleweeds in one was the straw from the other, the saguero cactus ribs were the sticks, the adobe bricks the analog to the standard bricks, the desert location versus the grassy place where the piggies’ houses were.

Next thing you know, the kid will be teaching scene a faire in law school!